You undoubtedly have read the newspaper articles that came out last week alleging Penn State football legend Joe Paterno knew about Jerry Sandusky’s abuse of children as far back as the 1970s.
The stories cite an UNKNOWN UNNAMED source as being the basis for the accusation.
Part of the foundation for the rest of the story is a SINGLE line reference by the insurance company attorneys for Penn State University in papers they filed.
They are trying to get out of having to pay $$ resulting from the Sandusky sexual abuses.
You always need to look for what the parties interests are in situations like this.
The insurance company’s interest is in saving $$ for themselves.
And the amount of money in question is huge..
About $60 million huge.
Pittsburgh wrongful death, medical malpractice, car accident and criminal defense attorney Bernie Tully recognizes that readers have very strong opinions both pro and con about this whole affair.
Did Joe Paterno, the legendary Penn State football coach know or have reason to know about what was happening?
Ultimately the truth is going to come out one way or the other to the satisfaction of most people.
Pittsburgh wrongful death, medical malpractice, car accident, slip and fall, defamation attorney and criminal defense attorney Bernie Tully wants to make one legal observation in this blog about the claim.
The worst type of accusation against a person’s character is from an unknown unnamed person.
It’s defamation at its absolute worst.
Why?
Because it’s virtually impossible to defend against.
Tomorrow someone could start a rumor about you being a sexual predator.
How could you possibly defend against this kind of slander?
You cannot.
And neither can the Paterno estate.
Legally, one of the foundations of all cases in America is the 6th Amendment right to confrontation.
It’s called the confrontation clause and it is as important a concept in the law as there is.
It means basically if someone is making an accusation against you, that person has to come in and identify themselves.
It also means you have a right to cross-examine that person to test the veracity of what he is saying.
In fact the right to cross-examination has been described as the greatest engine ever devised for the discovery of truth.
Pittsburgh wrongful death, medical malpractice, slip and fall in car injury and criminal lawyer Bernie Tully has seen this play out countless times in courtrooms.
The right to confront the person making accusations against you and at least get their identity leads to the discovery of the TRUTH of a thing.
It’s the difference between getting at the truth of the matter and someone just making unfounded accusations.
Maybe there is truth to this allegation.
I don’t know.
But until someone identifies himself and provides specifics about the incident, it is nothing more that a modern-day witch hunt of the worst kind .
Anyway that’s way I see it.
Thanks for reading.
Bernie the Attorney.